


Look My Eyes Are Dry

by nwspaprtaxis



Series: What I Did For Love [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Blindness, Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Grieving Dean, Hell Trauma, HoodieTimePrompt, Hurt Dean Winchester, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Permanent Injury, Post-Episode: s05e22 Swan Song, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Lisa Braeden, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-27
Updated: 2012-05-27
Packaged: 2017-11-28 15:01:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/675724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nwspaprtaxis/pseuds/nwspaprtaxis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's not equipped for this. Not at two o'clock in the morning and with exactly one high school psychology course from a million years ago under her belt. But she has to be enough.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Look My Eyes Are Dry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rbmifan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rbmifan/gifts).



> _**A/N:**_ This is my fill for **rbmi_fan** ’s [prompt](http://hoodie-time.livejournal.com/608041.html?thread=8486441#t8486441) at **hoodie_time** 's [A Dean-focused h/c comment-fic meme (#6)](http://hoodie-time.livejournal.com/608041.html) which went thusly: _So post 5x22, Lisa is helping Dean through Sam's death and his accumulated trauma. She's probably only got the bare basics of what he's gone through. Then one night Dean has a flashback to Hell and name drops Alastair. Possibly he mistakes her for him. I wanna see Lisa dealing with that. And maybe she's been doing research/taking night classes on counseling through trauma/PTSD?_
> 
> Occurs after the big beatdown in _5x22 SWAN SONG_ but AUs after Sam throws himself into the pit with no spoilers for anything afterwards.
> 
> Special thanks to: A bazillion smishes to **geckoholic** for being awesome giving this such a rock-hard beta and for idea-bouncing every step of the way. Much thanks to **tifaching** for the look through and final polish in spots I wasn't too sure about. Also, **rbmi_fan** I'm sorry this is so late and I hope you like it and it is somewhere in the ballpark of what you were looking for...
> 
> Also, a portion of this fic was inspired by [this image](http://i414.photobucket.com/albums/pp229/FlamingCreature/DeanLisa_Yoga01_col02_flat.jpg) by **annartism**. The art post can be found [here](http://hoodie-time.livejournal.com/608041.html?thread=8443689#t8443689) and [here](http://annartism.livejournal.com/7806.html).
> 
>  _ **Disclaimer:**_ Do not own. Am not making a profit. Just simply having fun with their psyches and returning them slightly more battered to Kripke and Co. and all that Yada Yada. Also, I do not own the song _What I Did For Love_ from the musical _A Chorus Line_ – just borrowing the lyrics for the title, so don’t sue.

She has never been what one would consider a light sleeper but she stirs when the mumbling begins, still unused to the sounds and movements in her space, even now, four months in. The nightmares are a nightly occurrence; have been ever since that first night. She suspects they’d been a part of Dean’s life well before she’d brought him home from that hospital in Illinois, battered and bruised in more ways than just his face. The good nights are the ones when she wakes to pained whimpers and rouses him as the harsher sobs begin, when his cries are still broken, mostly-indistinct words, crying out for Sam or for someone to help, _save_ , him. The really bad nights are when he wakes himself screaming.

Tonight, there’s a different quality to his fussing and she knows even as she begins to stir that it’s going to be a bad night. He’s squirming, twitching, but his movements are reined in and the words coming from his throat are a steady litany of _no, please don’t, no_.

Lisa sits up, flicks on the bedside lamp, and sees he’s glistening with a slick sweat and somehow entangled himself in the sheets. She reaches out, about to place her hand on his chest, to pull him from whatever is haunting his dreams when she catches it; a word that sounds like a name made up of harsh, raw, ugly vowels in the midst of his pleadings. She pauses, retracting her hand slightly, and his babbling continues, this time louder and clearer — _not him, please, don’t. Alastair, you swore_.

“Dean,” she calls out gently, reaching out again with her hand but before she can make contact, he wrenches himself bolt upright with a shout. He lets out a single, broken sob as he crumples on himself, drawing up his knees and wrapping his arms around his middle, shuddering. He’s still thin, slightly underweight and too pale from weeks of consuming nothing but smoothies, then weeks more of poor eating habits and not sleeping.

Lisa edges in gently, hands hovering but not making contact. She’s almost afraid to touch him, oscillating between the desire to offer the physical comfort she longs to give and the knowledge that her actions could prove detrimental.

Another sob escapes Dean and he curls impossibly tighter on himself, still visibly shaking. When his breath hitches again, Lisa throws the covers off and crawls around until she’s facing him, kneeling on top of the twisted, damp bedsheets, as close to him as she dares. Dean’s got his eyes screwed up tightly and his breath is railroaded in, coming in such harsh, shallow pants that she knows he’s on the verge of hyperventilating.

“Dean,” she tries again, her voice louder and firmer this time. There’s no reaction. She gentles her tone, “Dean, c’mon honey.” She reaches out, snaking her arm around him and cupping the back of his neck with her hand. “It’s okay, it’s not real. It was just a dream.” She can feel the too tight, corded muscles there, his breath rasping beneath her palm. There’s no way his body is getting enough oxygen and she knows it’s contributing to his tension and panic. She runs her fingers through the soft, sweat-soaked spikes at his nape.

“You gotta loosen up, baby. I know you’re scared and it’s bad in there, but it’s okay,” she babbles softly, her voice falling into the cadence she uses for visualizations at the end of each lesson. “I’m here. I’m not going to let anything happen. I gotcha. Okay? Trust me.” She massages the back of his neck and feels a tight knot release. “You’re doing real good. Just unbend a little. Can you sit Indian style? You don’t have to open your eyes or anything…”

Dean doesn’t say anything, doesn’t unclench his eyes, every line of his body as hard and tense as a bowstring. She maintains contact as he lets go of his shins and bends his legs down. She can tell he’s stiff, that he doesn’t have half the flexibility she’d expected from someone who’d spent a lifetime fighting monsters.

His breath is still sawing in-and-out, all harsh ineffectual pants, as though he’s running a marathon and it hurts her chest just listening to him trying to breathe. She blows a puff of air into his face and he reflexively inhales, his eyes snapping open. They are huge and green, the pupils blown with panic. They flit around the room, his face paling with terror before his gaze settles on her. The relief she can see there breaks her heart.

“Lise?” His croak is a higher register than usual, his normal gruffness absent.

She leans forward, not taking her eyes from his, even though they’re clenched tight again, and presses her forehead against his. “It’s me. It’s the middle of the night and you’re in Cicero, Indiana,” she rattles off, sensing her words are grounding him. “This is real. No one is gonna hurt you, okay? Whatever was in your head… it was just a dream. Come back, Dean.”

He clears his throat softly, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he gulps, his face screwed up with pain. “I went to Hell,” he rasps after a long moment, his voice wrecked and young sounding. “Like... _literal_ Hell… and it was bad.” He opens his eyes and they are haunted, hunted. He slams them shut.

For a moment she’s stricken, feeling as though he’d slapped her, unable to process his words. It feels too big, too far out of her frame of reference to even begin to comprehend. The sound of him hyperventilating breaks through her shock and she snaps out of her stunned daze.

“All right. It’s gonna be all right,” she babbles inanely, feeling helpless, unsure what to say or do. Belatedly, she remembers his cries for Sam and the odd mumble about _take me, please_. The pieces click into place and something hard and icy and immovable settles into her gut. And she wants to puke.

“That’s what you dream about isn’t it… you and Sam being down there…” she whispers, horrified.

The query earns her a tiny bob, his forehead rubbing against hers. He’s sweating, gasping like a fish out of water, his body wracked with shudders, and she wonders how he is not passing out.

“Dean,” she inflects a note of authority into her voice and he flinches. “You gotta breathe. I’m right here, okay?” She inhales deeply through her nose, holds it, and exhales, long and exaggerated. She does it several more times and then there’s an extra exhale on the tail end of hers. She doesn’t move, her body almost completely in his space, her hands resting gently on his thighs. She feels his own creep across the gap between them and latch onto her knees, his grip bruising, but she doesn’t call him on it.

“Inhale to the count of three,” she draws in a breath from her stomach and she hears him imitate her. “Hold,” she counts off another set, “and release to six.” Again, she counts off for him.

She doesn’t know how long they sit there, him tense and coiled and her coaching him the way she does for all of her clients. She corrects his methods, instructing him to pull in from his diaphragm, and to empty out his lungs completely, like a balloon.

Finally, he slumps against her, his breathing regular, the tension mostly gone from his body, even though the keyed-up anxiety is still there. She senses he’s a hair-trigger away from falling apart on her again and she makes a mental note to research PTSD.

His eyes flutter open and they’re exhausted, but clear.

“Hey. Welcome back,” she whispers, raising her hand and strokes his short hair at his temple. Spontaneously, she tilts in and kisses him on the lips, swiftly and chastely.

He slides his hands slowly, heavily, from her knees to her hips and wraps his arms around her waist, pulling her in again. He squeezes her in mute gratitude, dropping his head to her shoulder.

Gently, she disengages and slides off the bed, all careful, non-threatening movements, trying not to spook him again, and holds out her hand. He blinks at it uncomprehendingly. “C’mon,” Lisa says softly and he reluctantly closes his much larger palm around hers. It is cool and clammy as she tugs him to his feet.

He’s shaky, still, but she compensates for it, slowly leading him downstairs, making a pit stop in the living room where she wraps the thick, sweatshirt-material cream-and-burgundy Indiana University stadium blanket around his shoulders, allowing her arms to linger there for a moment. She guides him into the kitchen, where she sits him on one of the bar stools, pressing her lips to the side of his temple.

He doesn’t say anything and she can feel him watching her as she turns on the dim light hanging over the sink and going to the refrigerator where she pulls out the plastic gallon jug of milk, bringing it to the counter by the microwave. She opens the cupboard doors and takes down two mugs. She tops them both off with milk and sticks them both in the microwave, jabbing at the beverage button. She uses the minute and forty seconds to replace the milk back on the lower shelf of the fridge and to take a moment to lean back against the counter, trying and failing to stifle a yawn.

“You should go back to bed. You don’t have to…” Dean’s voice is flat, his expression carefully emotionless.

“Don’t be silly,” Lisa tells him. “I don’t mind. It’s okay.”

The microwave dings insistently and she rescues the mugs, squeezing generous doses of honey into each before setting them on the island. She swings herself up on the stool beside him, remaining on his left to compensate for his blind side, and wraps her hands around her own cup, relishing the warmth. When she’s nearly halfway done with her drink, she notices that Dean hasn’t touched his yet, although he’s got his hands clawed around the blue PBS mug.

“Dean…” she says his name softly.

“Sam’s down there,” Dean rasps, his voice too loud, too rough in the silence. “Right now. He… he…” Dean presses his lips tightly together, holding in tears and pain. He takes an uncertain breath that borders on a sob and blurts in a hard rush, “He threw himself in Lucifer’s Cage to save the world.”

She swivels her seat and he turns from her, trying to stifle his cries, to smear away his tears. She doesn’t say anything — there is nothing she can say — and she leans in, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He cringes, stiffens. For a moment she’s afraid he’s going to reject her, that he’s about to shatter apart, when he deflates, crumpling in her arms, weeping. He curls into her hold, gripping her tightly and burying his face into her shoulder and hair, shivering with his quiet sobs. She squeezes him, not letting go, and, after what seems like forever, feels him cry himself out and go heavy.

“It’s gonna be okay. We’re gonna get Sam out,” she whispers into his ear and he doesn’t stir.

She doesn’t let go or move from her awkward angle as the hours pass and she watches the sun come up.

 

 


End file.
